Saturday, October 21, 2023

Musty TV's Maniacal Movie Countdown - Day 21: Bedlam (1946)

This year's Val Lewton production I haven't yet seen is Bedlam, starring Boris Karloff as the master of an 18th century insane asylum.

I went into Bedlam thinking I'd be bored by it, as I feared 18th-century setting would result in a stodgy production full of powdered wigs. I was wrong! Bedlam is actually a lot of fun, and I was really taken with the director Mark Robson's attention to little details (like the aforementioned wigs) and the film's camera work, which you can see an example of in the clip embedded below.

Boris Karloff, as always, is both creepy and amusing as the headmaster of an insane asylum badly in need of reforms he's promised to make, but has no desire to follow through on. And Anna Lee is great as the headstrong woman fighting for that reform, albeit not from the comfortable position she starts out from.

I watched Bedlam on DVD, but it is available as a rental from Prime, Apple TV, and Vudu.

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